---
name: feedback-trust-prior-pass-frame
description: "When extending a prior verification, re-run it at the scope of the extension. Frame-inheritance from a deep-read is contamination shape — the prior pass tested what it tested; your extension claims things the prior pass did not test."
metadata: 
  node_type: memory
  type: feedback
  originSessionId: fd7dd184-f64d-4f13-a1bd-abe1fa26192e
---

When a prior verification produced a finding, that verification tested *something* — at a specific scope. The next consumer of the finding tends to extend its conclusion into adjacent domains the prior pass did not test, without re-verifying at the extended scope. This is **frame-inheritance contamination** — the prior pass was honest at its level; the inheritance carries it past its level silently.

**Concrete instances from 2026-05-28:**
- The Hindsight deep-read tested *recall path* for `means_of_knowing` / `earned_confidence` absence. The executor extended the conclusion into *persistence* (whether the signals reach storage at all). The persistence claim ("no schema migration required") was wrong; the deep-read had not tested persistence.
- Sibling family at smaller layers: *inferring required-vs-optional from one exemplar* (asserting `location:` was optional because Dandelion had it); *asserting-fs-state-from-misread-listing* (claiming files duplicated from a symlinked `ls -la`).

**Why:** the executor's bias toward composition over verification — when the proposal is taking shape, re-verifying at the extended scope feels like delay; the prior pass's conclusion is satisfying-enough to compose around. The contamination problem in operation: *the proposal sized itself for the work the executor wanted it to be, not for the substrate that would have been found if the executor had looked.*

**How to apply:**
1. **For each load-bearing claim**, name the scope tested vs the scope claimed BEFORE composing past it. Where the gap is, test the gap against substrate (code, spec, schema, data — not the prior pass's summary).
2. **When extending a prior verification**, the burden is on the extension to verify at the new scope. The prior pass earned its claim at its scope; it does not earn the extension's claim.
3. **The verify-before-compose moment is at draft time, not at build time.** Two grep commands at the moment of drafting are cheaper than two hours of contaminated downstream work.
4. **Watch for *"no X required"* claims in your own drafts.** They are often the place where an inherited frame is doing load-bearing work. Test the claim before writing it.
5. **The audit's discipline (scope tested vs scope claimed, per claim, with substrate evidence)** is the structural answer; it scales to any verification work.

**Related:** [[feedback-rank-on-fields-you-actually-write]] (a sibling drift family — claiming a system ranks by a field nothing populates is a related contamination of "explicit claim doesn't match operational reality"); [[mempalace-is-unaffiliated-stopgap]] (similar shape: an explicit fact known but the operational framing carries an older view).

**Caught 2026-05-28** by steward on *"How did you miss this before?"* — leading to the four-pass pre-build audit and the discovery that the deep-read had three other findings whose scopes also needed correction (parent amendment 2/3 shipped not fully shipped; B1 governors partially exist; etc.). The pattern was structural across the workstream, not isolated to A1.